The matron I dealt with the most was Pat. Unlike the other matrons, Pat wasnât hot. Pat was cold. Pat was small, mousy, frazzled, and her hair fell greasily into her always tired eyes. Pat didnât seem to get much joy out of life, though she did find two things reliably satisfyingâcatching a boy somewhere he wasnât supposed to be, and shutting down any bouts of roughhousing. Before every pillow fight weâd put a sentry on the door. If Pat (or the headmasters) approached, the sentry was instructed to cry: KV! KV! Latin, I think? Someone said it meant: The headâs coming! Someone else said it meant: Beware! Whichever, when you heard it you knew to get out of there. Or pretend to be asleep. Only the newest and stupidest boys would go to Pat with a problem. Or, worse, a cut. She wouldnât bandage it: sheâd poke it with a finger or squirt something into it that hurt twice as much. She wasnât a sadist, she just seemed âempathy-challenged.â Odd, because she knew about suffering. Pat had many crosses to bear. The biggest seemed her knees and spine. The latter was crooked, the former chronically stiff. Walking was hard, stairs were torture. Sheâd descend backwards, glacially. Often weâd stand on the landing below her, doing antic dances, making faces. Do I need to say which boy did this with the most enthusiasm? We never worried about Pat catching us. She was a tortoise and we were tree frogs. Still, now and then the tortoise would luck out. Sheâd lunge, grab a fistful of boy. Aha! That lad would then be well and truly fucked. Didnât stop us. We went on mocking her as she came down the stairs. The reward was worth the risk. For me, the reward wasnât tormenting poor Pat, but making my mates laugh. It felt so good to make others laugh, especially when I hadnât laughed for months.
âŠ..it seems Haroldâs upset race baiter Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu 
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